At present, electrical installations of buildings, in particular lighting applications installed, are subjected to power limitations, e.g. indicated as a maximum power consumption per square feet, or Lighting Power Densities, which are represented as Watts per Sq. Feet which are part of building codes that need to be met prior to the use of the electrical installation. In practice, an Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) or building inspector would verify if the total installed wattage of an electrical installation is compliant or acceptable, as required by building code restrictions, or requirements with respect to power consumption. Such a check would in general require verifying the wattage of each device of the electrical installation, e.g. based on the labeling on the devices, adding the total installed wattage and verifying if it meets the power consumption limit.
Such an inspection and subsequent certification of an electrical installation may thus be difficult and time-consuming. Further, from a manufacturer's point of view, it is often cumbersome to design or stock inventory to an electrical installation, e.g. comprising a plurality of lighting applications that makes optimal use of the allowable power consumption. Typically, due to such differences in building designs it is often difficult to manage fixture power requirements and it would require mixing and matching of devices of different wattage in order to comply with a building code requirement, or Lighting Power Densities. In order to provide an optimal match, this could require the design, maintenance and support for a comparatively large range of driver and power supply devices having different power load ratings. In case of LED based lighting applications, comprising one or more LED fixtures powered by an LED driver or ballast, a manufacturer of such application would need to sustain a large range of LED drivers having different wattages.
This could be cumbersome, both with respect to design effort, maintenance and support or turnover stock.